


The One That Got Away

by Helicidae



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mild Gore, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 11:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helicidae/pseuds/Helicidae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At 17 Mycroft was almost the victim of a serial killer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One That Got Away

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/19351.html?thread=117054871#t117054871

"Charles," Matthew said, almost too breathily to remain serious.  He moved his grip from Mycroft's shoulders and leant in for another kiss.  
  
Mycroft didn't know why he'd given a fake name but the lie had rolled off his lips without him thinking.  After all, it seemed like the sort of thing that people did in this situation.  Invited to a strange man's flat after little more than ten minutes of casual talk, of course you'd give a fake name.  Had he really been that obvious, though, sitting there in the café?  But Matthew (and that wasn't a false name, or at least if it was it was a serious one—the mail was addressed to Matthew Palmer) had been more than explicit enough for the both of them, if under his breath.   
  
And here they were.  In the hallway of a cheap apartment in a cheap part of London, but still.  There was a man with a fake name on his tongue and his hands on Mycroft's hips.  
  
Matthew pressed in for another kiss but this time softer, barely parting his lips.  He pulled back and Mycroft couldn't help but lean forward into him, their hips together.  A small part of his thoughts were insisting that he was being silly, that he should retain at least some dignity— _don't make a fool of yourself in front of him.  Stop acting like a lust–riddled teenager_.  But they were firmly wedged at the back of his mind and he kept them there.  He could do what he wanted.  There was no one here who would be judging him on dignity.  He was a lust–riddled teenager and damn anyone who was going to stop him.   
  
Matthew grinned; his narrow face became softer at the action, his eyes crinkling attractively.  "Hold on," he said, voice a mellow tenor, amused.  "You did promise you'd let me woo you first."  
  
Mycroft huffed a laugh, almost too amused by the sentiment to be impatient.  But even so, he wouldn't be rude even if the food turned out to be terrible and the wine something he wouldn't look at as he passed it on the shop floor.  He could survive a little impatience, he assured himself, and nodded.  
  
"Come in, then," Matthew said, breaking from the grip only to lead Mycroft forward with a hand at the small of his back.  The kitchen they entered was small and if not dirty, messy—had he been making jam?  The thick strawberry smell was almost sickening; at the very least the window was open.  There was a unopened bottle of sparkling wine on the counter and Mycroft allowed himself a small amount of self–indulgent disappointment as he recognised the brand.  Saucepans and plates lined the walls along with packets and tins of food, and Mycroft wondered what was in the cupboards if not that.  
  
"If you'll excuse the mess," Matthew said, grinning in a way that made him look younger—almost as young as himself, Mycroft realised in a sudden bout of uncertainty ( _what the hell are you doing here_ ,  he thought in the back of his mind.  _ The trouble you'll be in if you're found out_).  
  
"It's nothing," Mycroft replied instead, automatic, attempting charming.  He pushed his thoughts further back and concentrated on the heat low in his belly, the almost embarrassing way he was half-hard already.  Matthew was good looking, if not stunningly handsome.  His short brown hair was soft and his body more muscular than it looked, tucked away in cheap, casual clothes.  He had short, strong fingers—masculine hands to Mycroft's feminine ones.  
  
Matthew laughed good naturedly, easily.  "I'll take your coat," he offered, already helping Mycroft from it as he spoke.  "I'll have to be extra polite for you, I see.  You're putting me to shame already."  
  
Mycroft only grinned, not entirely sure of what to say, and shrugging out of his jacket he stood and watched Matthew take it into the hall.  His eyes automatically slipped back to the crowded surfaces.  The smell really was not pleasant: overly sweet, layered with something that was sticking to the back of his throat and making his gorge rise.  Jam was produced from sugar and soft fruit; surely neither made that smell.  Perhaps there was another ingredient,  a preserving agent.  Perhaps that was what it was.  The window was as wide open as possible and Mycroft hoped that the smell had not permeated the rest of the house.  
  
"While I'm here," Matthew called from behind the door, "I'll try to find us something to drink.  It's a bit of a mess, I know.  What do you like?  I've got a white, red, and I'm sure a rosé somewhere.  Or something stronger?"  
  
Mycroft hesitated.  The corner of something black trapped in one of the cupboard doors had caught his attention.  "What do you have?" he called back.  Was it rude to poke around in someone else's kitchen cupboards?  What exactly was he meant to say if he go t caught?  But he wanted to know, now.  It looked like a bin bag: dark, shiny plastic.   It was probably nothing.  
  
The cupboard hinges were loose; Mycroft crouched down and burrowing his fingers into the gap he levered the door open.  
  
It was a bin bag.  There were a couple of them in the small space, messily stacked.  Both were partly full, bulging out into odd shaped lumps and furrows, neatly tied closed.  Was it rubbish?  Mycroft put his hand out and gently touched the one on top, fingertips sliding as the plastic moved against something slimy inside.  
  
The smell was making him feel sick, queasy down to the bottom of his stomach.  Very quickly the eagerness was falling away and replaced by something more akin to dread.  What was in the bags?  Rotting vegetables?  Why would anyone keep that in their kitchen cupboards?  But the smell, stronger now that the door was open, was not of vegetables no matter how rotten.   
  
There was the sound of clattering, bottles clinking as they knocked together, from the next room.  Not being able to stop himself, even as the slow, hollow feeling of unease wound its way through his guts and up his throat, Mycroft flattened his hand against the bag.  It was cold.  There was some give, wet, but in most places it was harder, solid and heavy.  The solid things moved when pushed, connected to each other.  There was liquid pooling in the bottom and it made a faint sucking noise as the bag shifted.  
  
Mycroft's throat clenched but he still couldn't stop his hand.  Long fingers moved as if of their own accord, exploring.  They'd found something large, hard and rounded, if uneven.  Some sort of short, fine fibres were attached to one end.  He traced two shallow pits next to each other, soft where they were deepest.  Between and below those there was a protruding, semi-flexible ridge, ending and flattening sharply.  
  
 _Stop.  Get out.  Get out, now.  NOW._  
  
Below the ridge there was a hinged pit lined on top and bottom with two rows of something hard and thin, half protected by flaps of a much softer, formless substance.  
  
Pulling his hand away as if burnt Mycroft watched in frozen horror as the top bag slumped, catching onto the end of a nail, and tore minutely.  A thick fluid, black–red and congealed, started to ooze out of the hole.  
  
He closed the cupboard door.  His hands were shaking.  That was interesting; his hands had never shaken from purely psychological reasons before.  His chest felt tight.  He could barely breath.  
  
“There’s a whisky – I know there’s a whisky somewhere,” Matthew was saying.  There wasn’t any way to get past to the front door without him noticing.  A glance out of the window confirmed that jumping would be nothing more than suicide.  
  
For a breathtaking moment Mycroft toyed with the idea.  Surely it would be a quick death.  Easy way out.  His breath stuck and he knew he couldn’t do it, no matter how desperately much he didn’t want to have to face that man.  He was trapped.  He couldn’t get out.   
  
But he could do something; he was better than other people.  He was better than Matthew.  
  
The wine bottle was plucked out of the clutter.  Mycroft’s hands refused to stop shaking as he held the bottle up and stood by the oven, looking at the pale liquid.  
  
How many were in the cupboards?  If every cupboard was too full to fit the food and equipment how many did that make?  Mycroft’s mouth was dry; he couldn’t swallow.  He felt sick.  The smell of the jam mixed with the other smell, and how could he have mistaken it for anything else?  Taking the parcel tape left lying on the table Mycroft wound it around the cork and down the neck of the bottle, wincing at how loud it was.  It sounded deafening.  How could Matthew not hear?  He was still outside, rattling boxes and glass bottles.  Did he know that Mycroft knew?  Was he preparing his murder weapon right now?  
  
Mycroft put the bottle down sideways on the back gas ring and shifted a box of cereal to in front of it.  He turned on the hob.  
  
How long would it take?  It could go so wrong—Mycroft curled his fingers into his shirt at his sides and stifled a hysterical laugh.  It couldn’t be much worse than it already was.  He was—in the cupboards there were—  
  
Oh, god.  He couldn’t do it.  His ribs were constricting; he could feel his heart hammer the inside of his chest, up in his shoulders and into the back of his throat.  He couldn’t do it.  He just wanted to get out.  He wanted it to be a sick joke and he wanted it to be over.  
  
“I found the whisky,” Matthew said.  “And some decent rum, if you want it.”  He was smiling as he came in, walking past Mycroft to put the two bottles he was holding down on the counter.  Then he blinked, looked at Mycroft, and said: “You alright, Charles?”  
  
Mycroft slammed the kitchen door behind him but before he could even step away the door started to open.  He pulled it shut and hung on to the handle, forcing it upright.  He could feel Matthew—a murderer, an actual fucking serial killer—rattle it from the other side.  
  
“Charles?  Charles, what’s wrong?”  He sounded confused.  Mycroft closed his eyes and clung to the door handle harder.  His hands hurt.  He couldn’t break down.  The door rattled again.  
  
“Are you okay?  Can I come through?”  The murderer’s voice was concerned, calm.  “What’s the matter?”  
  
“No,” Mycroft said.  He realised that was shaking his head violently; his voice caught and shuddered as he spoke.  “I just remembered.  I need to go.  Need to go home—my parents.  They’ll wonder where I am.”  
  
It was a lie.  His parents weren’t expecting him back for days yet.  
  
“We were going to have dinner, though.”  The door’s hinges creaked as they were pushed against.  “You’re still up for that, yeah?  I got the whisky.  Or did you prefer wine?  You can have that if you want.”  
  
“No.  No, please,” Mycroft interrupted.  His words were ragged; he couldn’t stand listening to that soft voice.  “I have to go.  Please.”  
  
There was a pause as the pressure on the handle fell away, the only noise traffic from outside.  Mycroft glanced at the front door from over his shoulder.  Could he make a run for it?  But his hands felt like they were cemented onto the handle, fingers brittle as if they would snap if he tried to uncurl his fists.  He should be able to get there and get out before the murderer realised that the door wasn’t being held shut any more.  But what if he couldn’t?  
  
His palms were slippery with sweat.  His breath was still unsteady through his mouth, tongue dry.  The skin on his back was crawling.  What was Matthew doing?  Had he found the wine bottle?  God, there wasn’t another way out of the kitchen was there?  There hadn’t been, he was sure.  Or had there?  Mycroft’s fingers slipped as he twisted to look back around the hall.  What if he was already in another room, just waiting?  Picking up a knife, or a rope to strangle him with?  
  
The door rattled suddenly and Mycroft jumped, violent, only just stopping himself from crying out.  
  
“Charles, are you still there?”  The tone was sharper, Mycroft couldn’t help but notice.  The thought that there were bare centimetres of wood and nothing else between them killed the relief of knowing where he was.  The sound of something scraping lightly against the door made Mycroft’s eyes close tight involuntarily; behind them it felt hot, wet and tight, and Mycroft held a shuddering breath as he recognised the sensation he hadn’t felt in years.  He wouldn’t cry.  He couldn’t.  But the scraping continued and the murderer just couldn’t shut up.  
  
“Was it me?  Did I say something?  Please, Charles.  We can still be friends, right?”  His voice was creeping into desperate, far too close through the door.  “I thought there was something between us.  Good friends, yeah?”  
  
Mycroft wanted to scream.  He wanted to shout  _go away, please just go away_.  He bit his tongue instead, pinching the tip of it between his front teeth.  The scratching stopped; it was quiet again.  
  
“Charles, let me through.  Please?  Why are you—”  
  
The sound of the bottle exploding was more of a crack than a bang.  Mycroft jerked away from the door, then took another step back as the yell that had accompanied the sound cut off.  In the split second after there was a silence and Mycroft’s heart froze.  
  
A second yell tore him out of his stupor; he turned and grabbed at the front door.  “W–what did you do?”  The words behind him were more of a cry, at once frightened and angry.  “Why did you do that?  Charles.  Charles!”  Mycroft fumbled with the handle but it wouldn’t budge.  Locked.  It was locked.  The kitchen door slammed open and Mycroft’s throat choked on a sob as he saw the man standing there; his face was bloodied on one side, smears of red covering his forehead and thicker where it painted a cheek in winding, blotched rivulets.  His hands, too, were smudged across the palms and over the fingers.  
  
His eyes were wide, mouth open and slack but eyebrows pulled down into darkening anger.  Mycroft’s fingers tugged uselessly at the door even as the rest of him was stopped still with incomprehensible horror.  
  
“You _bastard_ , ” the murderer said, a low, furious whine.  “I was so kind to you.  I was  _so kind _ and you _hurt _ me.”  
  
A small step towards him; Mycroft stumbled away to the side, almost tripping as he scrambled into the closest room—the bathroom—and slammed shut the door.  It banged as it was forced open an inch from the other side.  Mycroft threw himself back against it bodily, snapping it shut and fumbling with the lock.  His ribs were heaving, his whole body shaking.  
  
The door shuddered as it was pounded.  “You little cocksucker, you fucking bitch.  Let me in; I’ll ruin that pretty face of yours.”  
  
They were both breathing heavily.  Mycroft swallowed painfully, throat dry, and was left feeling winded.  He could hear ugly pants through the thin door as the banging stopped, before footsteps paced in the hallway, heavy.  It went quiet.  Mycroft’s legs felt weak as he went to the window and could see even before he reached it that there was no way he could fit through, even if there was anywhere to go except for a long drop down to the pavement.  
  
Just as trapped as before.  He felt like crying and didn’t care that crying was for children.  Mycroft sat, still shaky, on the edge of the bath next to the wall and curled into himself, pressing his chest to his knees and feeling like he was about to throw up.  He wasn’t just going to be killed now, he was going to be tortured then killed.  If he shouted for help it would attract only the murderer’s attention first; no doubt he’d be dead before anyone actually arrived.  
  
Footsteps in the hall again, but quieter.  Mycroft tried to stop his breath quickening and failed; he looked around the small room, lit bright from the streetlamp outside.  Was there anything he could use as a weapon?  Could he stand behind the door, perhaps, for an ambush attack?  But the front door was still locked; he’d have to kill Matthew, then.  Unconscious wasn’t good enough, nor were restraints.  
  
“Charles.”  The tone was subdued and the door knocked softly: three polite raps.  “Charles, I’m sorry for losing my temper just now.  I didn’t mean it.  Will you come out?”  
  
Time seemed to stop; Mycroft froze, holding his breath.  _Go away.  Just go away.  Please, just go away._  
  
“Are you not come out?  Please, I said I was sorry.  I don’t know what else I can do.”  A short pause.  “You can stay there, I guess, until you’re ready.  I’ll start cooking dinner when you come out.  Is that okay?”  
  
“No,” Mycroft croaked.  He immediately regretted it but he needed the murderer to stop talking, and once the word was said he couldn’t help the uneven others from tumbling out too.  “No, stop it.  Please just stop it, just let me go.  Please.  Just let me go.  I want—I want to go home.  Please.”  
  
His nose was running again; he could feel hot tears prickling his eyelids.  Mycroft wiped them both on the back of his hand, which he then pushed against his mouth, knuckles pressing hard into his lips.  
  
“It’s okay; come out when you’re ready to, yeah?  It’s okay Charles.  Don’t cry.  Please don’t cry.  Just come out when you’re ready.”  
  
Mycroft shook his head silently and attempted to calm his erratic breathing.  He listened to the footsteps retreating again and allowed himself whistling, wet gasps, sucking in the air through his mouth.  But he could do this.  He could still try to get out rather than just sitting and waiting to be killed.  
  
His hand was sticky, damp.  Mycroft got up and wiped it on some toilet paper, then he wiped his face and ignored the fear that wanted him to hide, to curl up small in a dark space.  There had to be a makeshift weapon he could use, only he couldn’t find anything. A full black bin bag slumped out of the cupboard as Mycroft opened it.  
  
He stifled his cry with one hand pressed over his mouth, closing his eyes and stepping away automatically until the back of his legs hit the bath.  The cupboard had looked out of place; why hadn’t he realised?  The bag lay half on the floor, massive in the small room.  No.  Just ignore it, or put it back.  He didn’t have the time.  
  
There was a person in there.  A corpse.  If he didn’t do something quick that would be how he ended up.  
  
Mycroft grabbed the bag by the knotted top and pushed it back into the cupboard, snapping shut the door as quickly as he could.  His hands felt dirty, as if he’d touched the body itself.  He rubbed them on his trousers as he looked around the room again, attempting to ignore the memory.  He wasn’t going to be that person.  He wondered how long they’d been in that bag and in what state of decomposition they must be before cutting off that train of thought abruptly.  
  
There was a rubber shower hose curled in the bath.  Mycroft knelt and picked it up, then attached it to the taps.  He peeled away the lino on the floor, revealing wood, and putting the shower head onto the floorboards he switched on the water to full.  
  
The plumbing rattled; Mycroft held his breath, too aware of his rapid heartbeat, and waited for the footsteps, the banging on the door, to tell him that this wasn’t going unnoticed.  His knees were getting wet but the vast majority of the water was pouring obediently down between the floorboards.  The only loud noises that remained were the traffic and the pipes; the water itself was quiet.  Mycroft rested his head on the edge of the bath and let himself hope.  
  
It seemed like an age later when there was loud knocking on the front door.  “Mr Palmer,” a man shouted.  His voice was rough and angry.  “Matthew Palmer, right?  You home?”  
  
Mycroft shuddered in a breath, then after a second reached up to turn off the tap.  He put the shower hose back into the bath with a shaking hand, listening to the front door open and Matthew’s apologetic voice.  “What’s wrong?  Do you need anything?”  
  
“There’s a bleeding waterfall in my bathroom.  It’s either a burst pipe or you’ve left the damn taps on, and if it’s the taps you can go turn them off sharpish.”  
  
Mycroft stood unsteadily, legs gone to sleep from the kneeling.  He hit the door with the side of his fist.  “Help me, please,” he said, then louder: “Please help me.”  
  
“...The hell?” the man said before Mycroft called out, louder again but no less frayed.  “He—Matthew—tried to kill me; let me out.  He’s got—there are bodies, in the kitchen.  And here.”  
  
“The hell is going on,” the man said.  Mycroft shouted again and the relief was enough to make him light-headed.  He wasn’t going to die.  It was fine.  It was fine.  
  
The bathroom door bounced on its hinges as it was hit, violently.  “Shut up!  Shut up!” Mycroft took an involuntary step back.  “It’s none of your business so you can leave now, thank you.”  
  
“No,” Mycroft shouted, voice cracking.  “No.  Don’t.”  A third voice had added to the two murmuring outside, then another: two women joining the men in the doorway. Mycroft shouted over them: “Don’t.  Just look in the kitchen, in the cupboards.  There are dead people; he was going to kill me.”  
  
“...He’s staying with me; his parents can’t cope.  Look, he’s ill, he always has been.”  Matthew was speaking and Mycroft listened, a sick feeling spreading through his gut.  “He’s a good kid but he gets like this sometimes.  I’m sorry, I’ll pay for your bathroom, but he needs to calm down and you’re not helping.  Please.”  
  
“No,” Mycroft echoed, desperate.  He hit his clenched fists against the door once.  “No, it’s not—he’s lying, I don’t know him.  Please, just look in the kitchen.  Just look, I swear.  Don’t leave me with him.”  
  
“Please, everyone, stop it.  He’s going to hurt himself.  I know how to help him but he’s not going to calm down with everyone standing here shouting.”  
  
“He should be in an institution,” someone said loudly.  Another, stubbornly: “Well I’m not just leaving you with him, not with the things he’s saying.  Why can’t you let him out?”  
  
Matthew made a disbelieving noise.  “You don’t believe him, do you?  I’m honestly sorry but he’s not well and you’re upsetting him.  Please, just let me care for him; I promised my sister that I’d keep him safe inside—god knows what would happen to him on the streets alone at night.  But he’s not good with too many people.”  
  
“He’s a boy, not a dog,” a woman said sharply.  
  
“He’s _ill_ ,” came the answer, sounding harried.  
  
Mycroft almost banged on the door again in frightened frustration.  “Go in the kitchen, look in the cupboards.  Then you can tell me I’m crazy.  Just do it.  Please, just trust me.  I’m not.  I’m not crazy.”  
  
“Perhaps we should...” a voice trailed off, doubtful.    
  
“Don’t encourage him!  Look, he’s a good person, I swear, but he can’t think right sometimes and he gets confused.  He doesn’t belong in an institution.  Just let me calm him down.  Please.”  The murderer’s voice sounded almost pathetic, pleading to a cruel audience.  
  
A man, the first to have arrived, made a loud frustrated noise in the back of his throat, but his tone was soothing.  “Look, Charles—it’s Charles, right?  I’m Simon.  You can come out.  I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, okay?  You’re safe.”  
  
Mycroft pressed his forehead against the painted wood of the door.  “Make him go away, first.  Please.”  
  
“I won’t let him touch you if you don’t want it.  I promise.”  There was something careful but solid in Simon’s voice.  Mycroft drew in a breath and held it.  No one else was saying anything.  
  
It was okay.  He wouldn’t be attacked if there were others there.  Surely.    
  
Mycroft turned and knelt down by the cupboard.  He opened the door and let the bin bag slide out with a shuff of plastic and inside, wet sucking; as he pulled the knot closer to him his hands were shaking again.  He fisted them, pushed against his knees, and when they uncurled to undo the knot they were still.  
  
The body that emerged was more liquid than solid flesh; dribbles of viscous fluid ran across the floor and slopped around with the movement inside its container.  It stank, putrid, and as Mycroft dropped the plastic to cover his nose and mouth he gagged, again and again.  With an arm covering his face he reached to a corner of the bag and, in one movement, pulled it up and stepped back.  The person spilt out and as they hit the floor their swollen, blackened chest burst; cloudy fluid gushed across the lino, carrying with it discoloured particles and clumps of tissue.  
  
It was a boy, with once blond hair.  His face was distended to something near inhuman: sunken in parts, swollen to cracking in others.  The tongue was half rotten, only a ragged stump in the wide open mouth.  His eyes were empty sockets, body the colour of violent bruising and belly dissolved into raw, sloppy flesh sucked concave.  Lying on the floor, back arched out, the bottom of his ribcage was visible as a curved sheet corrugated with bone.  
  
Vomit hit the back of Mycroft’s throat and he stumbled away, eyes watering.  The lock opened under his fingers with a rusty grind and throwing the door open he had barely a second to take in the scene in the hallway.  
  
Matthew had a large plaster on one temple and his face was cleaned of blood.  It looked like he was close to tears.  The man standing next to him was large, with a beer belly, and his face as it slid from Mycroft into the bathroom was almost comical in its horror.  One of the women screamed; the other swore loudly and fervently.  Mycroft didn’t have the time to look at them before the murderer lunged forward.   
  
Mycroft realised, as he was halfway turned and scrambling towards the open front door, that it might be either himself or the escape the murderer was attempting to reach.  He didn’t stop to find out; knocking aside another man standing in the hallway he ran down the stairs, skidding on the threadbare carpet, and burst from the door out onto the street.  It was night.  He stumbled and fell on the cracked pavement, then rolling he picked himself up and ran on.  
  
He knew every street in the area.  His memory felt like white noise as he ran aimlessly, not knowing where he was going.  He couldn’t bring himself to stop, to look behind, for paralyzing fear of who might be there.  His lungs were burning, air rasping like sandpaper.  His legs felt like there was sand instead of blood inside their veins.  
  
He’d never been a runner.  Eventually he tripped again and fell, skidding and rolling to a halt.  His legs shook and wouldn’t stay underneath him as he tried to stand, no matter how hard he tried or much he wanted to.  Instead Mycroft curled, elbows and legs on the rough pavement, and hanging his head he gasped for air.  When he finally stood, feeling as if each muscle was pulverised, the street was empty.  He knew where he was, though.  It was not too far from home.  
  
His left knee was skinned, he noticed distractedly, the trouser leg torn and bloody.  He wasn’t too far from home.  He ached and his leg smarted, the pain growing steadily.  Concentrating on the feeling Mycroft forced himself back into a run.


End file.
